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‘Last Week Tonight With John Oliver’ Discusses The NCAA and March Madness

This week on Last Week Tonight, John Oliver talked about ISIS and Boko Haram joining forces, Nelly going to Kurdistan, Ireland (“Europe’s Boston”) accidentally legalizing a bunch of drugs, and the Brazilian government’s corruption scandal.

After a brief “Now This” segment (newscasters use the phrase “I don’t know about you” a lot), the main story of the night was The NCAA and March Madness, which apparently brings in over a billion dollars in ad revenue. Holy crap.

Despite swimming in so much cash, the NCAA refuses to pay their college athletes a proper salary. Basketball player Shabazz Napier was quoted last year saying, “Sometimes, there’s hungry nights where I’m not able to eat, but I still gotta play up to my capabilities.”

Yet the NCAA requires their athletes to sign a form which involves abiding by all the rules stated in a 440 page manual. The only compensation they receive is their education, which is often watered down and designed to make sure that athletes can keep playing in tournaments.

Oliver also brilliantly took down Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney for being opposed to paying college athletes because there’s “enough entitlement in this country as it is,” despite his $3+ million-dollar salary. Not to mention all the endorsement deals coaches are allowed to get. So Last Week Tonight created the hashtag #SoybeanWind (an anagram from his name) and encouraged everyone to tweet it out.